


these lines of lightning

by priestkink



Category: Original Work
Genre: Circus, Gen, M/M, Trans Male Character, mlm author
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-23 18:05:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18554995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/priestkink/pseuds/priestkink
Summary: mean we're never alone.various one-word oc prompts.





	1. pj & allen // future, ocean

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pj & allen are human

“You think we’re ever gonna get out of here?”

PJ finds Allen leaning against the passenger side door of his dad’s pickup truck when he joins him in the garage, hands stuffed into his pockets and looking in every way the part of some brooding teenager. Allen’s dressed in PJ’s clothes, obviously a size too big for him and definitely slept in, rumpled and loose and probably smelling like the both of them by now. He looks so tiny in them, and PJ can’t help but smile. Allen returns it as easily as he always does and PJ fiddles with the keys in his hand, listens to them softly jingle as he thumbs the key fob to unlock the doors and let Allen into the truck.

“Sorry, we can head out now,” he says, and the look Allen levels at him is unreadable in a way it hasn’t been for a long time. The smile falls off his face and gives way to something more subdued, almost thoughtful. PJ finds himself staring for half a second too long, like his vision snagged on something in Allen’s expression or on his soft angles, and Allen just huffs as he turns to clamber into the passenger seat. Something tugs loose in PJ’s chest, but he knows better than to keep talking and risk shoving his foot in his mouth. He’s never been the best with words.

PJ rounds to the driver side of the truck while Allen clears away the trash they’ve accumulated over the past two days, mostly fast food wrappers and receipts, plastic bags and drink cups. Allen’s been pissy lately, and PJ’s known for a long time now not to poke the bear whenever he takes notice to any of Allen’s sour moods. Hell, usually they’re on a schedule anyway. So he’s quiet as he turns the key in the ignition and the truck roars to life, quiet as he backs out into the road, and quiet as he drives Allen home in the small hours of the morning just as the sun is starting to rise.

Allen watches out the window, chin in hand and leaned against the door, with that same unreadable look on his face – his eyebrows knitted close, bottom lip stuck out just enough for PJ to realize he’s either trying not to pout or doesn’t know what to say. That same tug in PJ’s chest pulls something else loose in him, and finally, he has to speak up before he chokes on whatever tension’s been building.

“I’m sorry,” he starts, because he’s learned this over the years, too: Allen never responds well to probing questions, and when he’s silent there’s usually something on his mind, and when there’s something on his mind it’s usually PJ’s fault.

Not always in a bad way, but – it doesn’t hurt to cover that base. _Always be prepared_ , PJ’s dad would tell him, beer in hand, _you gotta be ready to diffuse the bombs before they go off, even if they might not be bombs_.

Because what if you aren’t ready, and something goes off when you snip the wrong wires, and you can’t do shit to fix it in the aftermath? He’s barely nineteen, barely an adult yet, but PJ’s seen what happens when you don’t tread carefully. His parents’ messy explosion of a divorce is enough to scare him straight for the rest of his life, and Allen’s too precious to him to risk fucking up if he doesn’t stop and think, doesn’t make the effort to at least try.

Allen’s quiet for a long beat, and PJ almost thinks he didn’t hear him, gets ready to ask again, but then Allen’s turning that pensive look back to him, ready now.

“I don’t think I can stay here anymore,” he says, and PJ’s brain stalls so hard and so suddenly that he nearly hits the breaks in the middle of a left turn.

“What do you mean?” he asks, licking his lips, mouth suddenly desert dry. Allen sighs like he’s been holding his breath the whole ride, and he just shrugs. It doesn’t go unnoticed by PJ just how exhausted and aged he suddenly looks.

“I dunno, Peej,” he supplies unhelpfully, “when I said ‘here’ I didn’t mean, like, your place. It’s just…” He looks out the window again, both hands worrying at the fabric of his jeans, loose and bunched awkwardly at his knees. PJ’s got a solid eight inches of height on him, and Allen’s all soft curves and small features, so his jeans are rolled up and he’s wearing a belt and it’s still not much help.

PJ waits, like he always does. Allen will open up eventually.

It only takes him a few seconds before he’s back on track again and he says, voice wavering just enough for PJ to notice, “I’ve been fantasizing about it lately – us and the Harley and the open road, you know? Away from here. From all the bullshit. I’ve got my photography, you’re good with tools, we can do it. We can pack up and leave and just find work wherever. I can’t do this anymore, it’s all – just – I dunno. Bullshit.”

And then it clicks. PJ always knows what Allen means by _bullshit_.

 He’d called it bullshit when they were eight and the neighbors bullied Allen for wearing PJ’s clothes to the park, and that was the first time PJ had ever heard Allen curse. He’d called it bullshit when they’d overheard PJ use the name he liked instead of the name he’d been given and they called him words that PJ wouldn’t understand for years. And it was bullshit when PJ finally hit his growth spurt and suddenly Allen was looking up at him instead of the other way around. And again when he was denied twice for hormone therapy and the third time he’d been outed by his parents when the call to confirm his appointment went to them instead of PJ, and still he went ahead with it, and it’s only been three months now but the changes just aren’t coming fast enough for his liking and he’s still afraid to be home on the weekends when his father’s off from work.

PJ’s never slow on the uptake when it comes to Allen. He’s by no means perceptive, but he’s known Allen since they were both in diapers, can finish his sentences and probably his thoughts, too, at this point.

This is one thing he’ll never truly get, though. He just doesn’t have the tools for it, knows he doesn’t and he won’t shy away from that fact, won’t waste the time feeling guilty over it. There’s no point when Allen doesn’t hold it against him, not when he’s the only real support he has anymore, and he can’t be supportive when he’s making it about himself.

So what he does is he tries, for Allen’s sake, to be that support he needs.

God, does he try.

The future is terrifying, and he’s not sure where to start in uprooting his entire life, but he’ll do it for Allen. He’ll do anything for Allen.

“Let me just finish this apprenticeship and we’ll get the hell out of dodge, Al,” PJ says, voice low and rough in a way that Allen’s is just barely starting to match.

Allen lights up at that, but he tries to play it cool when he asks, “Really?”

PJ shrugs, tries to play it cool, too, but his stomach is doing flips over how lovesick and puppy eager that one word sounded when it rolled out of Allen’s mouth. “My old man’ll miss us, but I can just send him a postcard every once in a while, and he’ll be happy.”

Before PJ can even park the truck in front of the house Allen’s on him in an awkward, over-the-console hug, bone-crushing with a strength that’s hidden somewhere in Allen’s wiry body. PJ sputters and laughs and his lips find Allen’s cheek easily, like they’ve done this a thousand times before.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, okay? We’ll figure this out,” PJ says, breathing in the scent of his own shampoo and deodorant as he presses his nose into Allen’s hair.

“Yeah,” is all Allen says with a smile as he pulls away, and it’s in that same lovesick tone that slots whatever pieces came loose in PJ’s chest right back into place. He’s out the door and in the driveway in seconds, waving back at PJ who’s about to pull away, but then he grins at him again and yells, “I love you!”

PJ’s sure he’s red in the face just by the sound of Allen’s laugh, but his reply comes easily just like everything else does in his life where Allen’s concerned.

“Love you too, babe,” and he sounds just as lovesick as Allen did.

When he gets home, he works on the bike and hums along to the radio until his dad tells him to come inside for lunch, and then he calls Allen’s house to hash out their new plans for the future. They’re on the phone for hours until Allen’s sister complains, and PJ can hear him arguing as he covers the receiver, but for once he doesn’t care when she wins and Allen has to hang up.

* * *

 The breeze is gentle and carries with it the smell of salt and sun and sand, and PJ finally kicks the stand for the bike down twenty feet from the walkway across the dunes. Allen squeezes his middle with strong arms, then brings one hand up to knock on his helmet.

“Okay, alright,” PJ laughs as they both pull their helmets off. He turns back to Allen to kiss his hair, messy but still smelling of PJ’s shampoo. “Impatient.”

Allen grins at him, and PJ’s caught on the sharp angles, the bit of stubble framing his jawline. Then Allen’s surging forward to kiss him on the lips like he hasn’t seen PJ in days, like he wasn’t just hanging off him the whole ride to the beach.

“You love me anyway,” he says, voice rough and deep in ways Allen only dreamed of fifteen years prior.

PJ just smiles at him and snatches his helmet away, sliding off the bike to shed his gear and lock it up with the bike. Allen does the same until they’re in nothing but their board shorts, loud and colorful the same way they are. PJ runs a hand over Allen’s smooth chest, fingers brushing over the faint pink surgery scars, and Allen smacks his hand away.

“We’re in public,” he chides without any heat, “control yourself.”

“Oh, like how you _control yourself_ in the bar when you grab my ass in front of poor Bayou?” PJ sniffs, mock affronted. “Poor kid’s too nervous to take our damn orders anymore.”

Allen just huffs and grabs PJ’s wrist, pulling him to the walkway so they can cross the dunes, making a point to kick up as much sand as possible so it gets stuck in PJ’s leg hair.

But they both know that PJ doesn’t mind at all, that he’ll just let Allen do whatever he wants, pull him wherever and he’ll always follow. Fifteen years and nothing’s changed except the location, really.

They hear the roar of the waves crashing on the beach before they see them, and Allen’s shouting to the group huddled up under an umbrella set up only a few feet away from the lifeguard chairs as soon as they’re over the dunes. PJ has to run to keep up with him, but Allen’s a ball of endless energy and before he knows it Allen’s passed their friends entirely and run straight for the water.

For fifteen years they’d been on the road, and PJ finally feels like they’re home again, and it’s a feeling that renews itself every time he gets to watch Allen here, grinning and goofing off and splashing, running shirtless and wild like he did when they were kids too young to care about what the world thought of them.

The spray of the water as it splashes over PJ’s feet is chilly but he barely feels it when he sprints to dive through a wave after Allen, crashing into him full force so that they both roll and tumble through wet sand and salt water.

“Peej, what the fuck?” Allen sputters when he finally manages to stand again, between PJ’s flailing arms and the rough surf knocking him around. “You coulda killed me, fucker!”

“Bullshit,” PJ grins as he rolls himself to sit upright, and Allen’s shaking his head, wiping the sand and salt off his face. “You say that like you can’t beat the shit out of me now.”

Allen huffs at him and splashes water in his face where he’s sitting. “There hasn’t been any bullshit in a long time and you _know_ it, dick.”

The looks they exchange are bright and excited like a pair of eager children, and PJ has to agree.

There really hasn’t. Not in years, and there won’t be in the years to come, either.


	2. rigel // daydream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> rigel is a werehyena

The floor of the cage is dirty and frozen and the only bedding to speak of is old, dry hay but for as long as Rigel could remember it’s been home. From the rusted bars to the length of chain connecting his collar to the faint scent of magic keeping him trapped, it’s all he knows. He can hear the faint chuffing of one of the lions nearby, the horses stamping their feet into the rain-softened earth, a pair of voices talking about everything and nothing while they tend to the animals. His stomach growls but nobody’s tossed his food in yet, and he knows there’s a chance he might not get anything at all tonight with how poorly attended their last few shows have been.

There’s no way to get comfortable, here, but he tries anyway and folds his worn leather jacket into a pillow, lays back to stare at the ceiling of the cage. It’s rusted and worn just like the rest of the cage is, red paint flaking off in ugly patterns to reveal the oxidized metal underneath.

Rigel looks to his left instead, toward the open fields where the riders practice with their horses, the mud trampled and ugly and lifeless. But there’s a hill beyond that’s lush and green in ways he sometimes forgets are possible, and suddenly he’s trying to imagine a life away from here.

He imagines rolling hills, like the one he can see from the cage, but – bigger, more of them, sloping up and down and imagines himself shifted, collar-free and tumbling down them, rolling and feeling the dampness beneath his thick fur, the tickle of the blades underneath his paws as he gets to his feet and races back to the top again for more. But with the collar on he’s human, all long and awkward limbs, dark skin, small hands, tiny and fragile and freezing fucking cold.

So he imagines he’s not, imagines himself breaking the spell enchanting the collar digging into his throat and ripping the chain off the floor of the cage, imagines the clanging as the chain drags behind him after he shifts and bolts for the hill, up and over and beyond. Imagines himself as the cackling beast everyone _oohs_ and _aahs_ at when he’s forced to shift and parade himself around with the rest of the circus freaks, but with a choice in the matter instead of an electric shock that forces the air out of his lungs and blinds him to the pain of a forced shift.

There’s cities out there, he knows, he’s seen them when they’ve travelled. He thinks about the bustling activity to distract himself away from the imagined pain of his unwilling shifts, the tall buildings towering so far over his head he can’t see the tops, the crowds of people gathered to watch them passing through, the dark hallways of the performance spaces they’d set up in for shows. The smell is acrid, like smoke and sewage and too many fucking people, but it’s – well, it’s not _here_. Points for that, at least.

He’s only half aware that he’s staring up at the ceiling while he daydreams, mind lost in a fog as fields of green and pink and yellow and purple flash through his vision, long stretches of coastline he’s only ever read about in books with these tall waves crashing into rock and sandy shore, cityscapes and hills and cliffs and even suburbia, once or twice.

But the loud screech of metal bars being forced to move in ways they’re too rusted to startles him back to awareness and he sits bolt upright so fast that his head almost spins. He looks toward the man dropping a plastic dog bowl within his reach, watches him with dark eyes and a snarl on his lips even though they both know the collar will keep him in place. The man retreats as quickly as he came with a grumbled, “yeah, yeah,” and forces the bars closed again with another long, ugly screech that hurts Rigel’s ears.

Rigel huffs and stares down at the bowl, full of raw meat and bone and organs, but he’s not hungry.

He eats anyway, though, because he has to. This is reality, not some faraway dream where food’s in abundance and he never has to worry about going hungry.

It’s all he has, and probably all he’ll ever have.

So he eats and he shoves the bowl away and he curls up as far into one corner of the cage as he can, and he daydreams.


End file.
